The Relative Pronouns in French, I: Empirical Research.

CERTAINLY NO POINT OF GRAMMAR IN FRENCH has proven to be more difficult to teach than the relative pronoun (RP). The system is quite elaborate; even native speakers require an effort to produce the correct form. When it is a question of a second language, then the task becomes all the more difficult. As long ago as 1932, Harvey found the relatives to be the most difficult pronoun and that two of the three most frequent errors made by high school students involved RP's. A study done by Magdelhayne Buteau found it to be the most frequently missed discrete item for her English-speaking subjects. Cannings believed the RP to be the most difficult grammatical form for young native speakers learning French.1 Yet the RP is an important aspect of French structure. The standard measure of syntactic maturity always includes the ability to subordinate clauses, and relativization is an important feature of this process.2 While studying foreign students' production of relative clauses, Schachter discovered that the more difficult this structure is for students, the more likely they are to avoid it.3 Thus, if we do not teach RP's and if our students do not learn them, then they are forever condemned to express themselves in a simplistic, childlike manner in French. There are several reasons why English-speaking students have trouble with the French RP. Interference can act on several levels. First, the animate/inanimate distinction in English (who/which) can be completely avoided in French ( auquel